Social Impact

The Strathmore Speaker Series is proud to announce our next event, an evening with David Haas, founder of the viral Syracuse History Instagram account and co-founder of Storycuse.com. David will discuss documenting Syracuse’s past and how being a person who stutters has inspired his passion for giving a voice to the voiceless. The event will be held on Thursday, November 9th, at 7 pm. Like all Strathmore Speaker Series events, this presentation is free and open to the public.

About David Haas

David Haas is a nonprofit program manager; he volunteers for several local organizations with the mission to promote and develop the region. Most notably, David founded the popular @SyracuseHistory Instagram account in 2013 which now has over 14,000 followers. Since its inception, his work has been featured by a variety of media outlets including The Syracuse Post-Standard, Time Warner Cable News, 9WSYR, The Daily Orange and Syracuse Woman Magazine. In 2016, his account was voted ‘Best Blog’ and David was awarded ‘Best Social Media Personality’ by the Syracuse New Times. Subsequently, he launched the website, Storycuse.com, a platform for human interest storytelling. David has also been recognized by the CNY Business Journal as one of the 40 people under 40 who have excelled in the workplace and in the community. Late last year, Katrina Tulloch of The Syracuse Post-Standard named David as one of Syracuse’s leading innovators. Most recently, David became a freelance writer for the Syracuse New Times. He resides in the Eastwood neighborhood.

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Social policy expert and recent candidate for Onondaga County Legislature’s 15th District, Timothy Rudd will speak at the Firebarn on Thursday, November 19th at 7 pm. Timothy will discuss exciting new strategies to finance investments in people and their applicability to communities like Syracuse.

Timothy is a Research Associate for MDRC – a nonprofit, nonpartisan, social policy research organization headquartered in New York City. For the last four years Timothy has been heavily involved in the first Social Impact Bond (SIB) in the United States. The project used a $9.6 million loan from Goldman Sachs to pay for cognitive behavioral therapy for 16-18 year olds in the New York City jail system on Rikers Island. If the program can reduce the amount of time participants spend in jail by more than 10 percent, the City of New York will repay the loan using money saved by keeping program participants from returning to the jail system. If the program fails to reduce recidivism by the required amount then the City of New York pays nothing and investors lose their investment. The project examines a number of new and innovative ideas about how governments can most effectively invest in their people.

Timothy’s presentation will introduce the SIB concept and describe how it could change the way government pays for investments in people. Additionally, he will comment in a private capacity about how similar ideas might have value in places like Syracuse. He will examine questions such as: Is it appropriate to use debt to increase the level of investment in people? What are the costs related to the way government currently makes investments in people? Does a lack of investment in people perpetuate poverty? And, can financial innovations unleash new capital that can be used to disrupt the cycle of poverty?